Bags or liners made of plastic have found widespread use in facilitating the collection of refuse and trash. A liner is used to cover the interior surface of a trash receptacle thereby serving to keep the interior surface of the receptacle cleaner and to also facilitate removal of the trash from the receptacle. A liner is a bag, typically a thin plastic bag, with an opening. The opening of the liner is either dimensioned to fit over the rim of a trash receptacle or is resilient-enough to be stretched over the receptacle's rim or may be tied to the rim with a twist tie or other securement. When the receptacle needs to be emptied, the liner with the trash inside it is removed from the receptacle, with the liner serving as a convenient container for the trash. After removal, a new liner may be inserted into the trash receptacle and then tied, for example, with a twist tie near its rim.
Liners facilitate the gathering of trash and they help to keep the inside of a trash receptacles clean, and they also protect those collecting trash. The edges of the liner mouth are simply gathered together and used to lift the liner free of the receptacle, so there is usually no need to touch the trash itself or to clean the receptacle that had a liner. A new replacement liner is then inserted into the receptacle.
Despite the use of liners, it takes time and effort to gather trash. For example, an office building may have hundreds of trash receptacles, each of which is emptied of trash daily. A more efficient and productive way to collect trash from receptacles would be well-received.
Some trash receptacles have lids which may be hingedly (i.e., via a hinge or hinge mechanism) attached to the main receptacle. These types of containers range from kitchen trash receptacles to large trash units that are used to move household trash to the curbside from a home for pickup by teams of sanitation workers. Liners for use in receptacles without hinged lids do not work very well in trash receptacles with hinged lids because of the hinge connection between lid and trash receptacle. Thus, there remains a need for a way to make removal of trash from hinged lid trash receptacles better.